As Written, When the Towers Fell

When the towers fell, I was an at-home mom with two kids in 4th grade. In addition to producing articles, I maintained an almost daily journaling practice–especially when I needed to deal with intense emotions. Before I made it home from the school drop-off that day, the towers had already fallen. Though my kids sat in classrooms watching the towers fall–again and again–on television, I never saw those towers falling. Too much consumption of visual and auditory news following the Columbine shootings two years earlier had led me to swear off TV news.

Instead, I huddled at my computer getting news through Yahoogroup messages and some radio–and later from reading my newspaper. Nonetheless, I realized my reactions seemed different than those of most. Know this, I abhor violence in any form. My response that day and in the days that followed gave me insights into who I am–and who I am not.

What follows are (mostly unedited) raw, rambling excerpts from my handwritten journal. These words reveal just a few of the disjointed thoughts that overwhelmed this one American woman over a few September days in 2001.

September 11, 2001 

Another day that will live in infamy. I cannot believe what is happening today and yet when I know, it will only be worse than I can imagine.

My heart bleeds, the nation’s heart bleeds, many in the world bleed. However, so many of the victims are not bleeding but charred by the burning embers of the explosions, crashes, and bombs (note: this is early in the day and we did not know details). Airplanes dropped from the sky. God, what is the plan? What do we do to confront this? How do we respond without killing more innocents? And the lawnmowers drone on, as if the world has not changed on a dime today.

September 12, 2001 (morning)

I sit on my porch. Crickets chirp, birds twitter. With the grass green, the sky blue, and the flowers bold in their purples and coral, I can almost believe today is a day like any other. I feel so removed from what has happened. Yet if I try, I can smell the smoke, breathe in the heavy air of death, see the former buildings brought back to concrete dust, and hear the sobbing of a city, a nation, and a world. My pen is blood-red and I cannot forget why my heart aches. “We are not the same, we are not the same,” the cricket chirps. Where is the raven to answer, “Nevermore, nevermore”?

September 12, 2001 (afternoon)

I must be created, by God, differently. Someone mentioned feelings of hatred, especially for a group, after the [attacks] and then coming to their senses. I haven’t felt any hatred or even thought about the perpetrators much–maybe it helps that they are faceless for now (although news is they are closing in on the identities). All I can focus on is the victims and the country and the loss of innocence. 

Maybe this explains my pacifist leanings. Perhaps God creates us all differently so there will be people who do not rush to conclusions to balance out those who will do anything for their country. So this lack of hatred determines why I can step back and think rationally. Yet, this also leads me to be too passive in certain instances. If it were up to me, we would never retaliate. Yet, would they not just come back and kill more and more of us?

September 14, 2001

Today is a national day of prayer. But, still my heart is heavy as I hear this nation call for blood. I understand that I am the odd one who is not filled with anger, but I find it hard to see how we can fight this enemy in a war. Who is the enemy? And do the innocent have to suffer in the names of our innocents? 

Should I be more outraged or does someone around here need to remain calm? I value my freedom. I value my country. I value my freedom and I do value the lives of my fellow countrymen. But when does that justify war?

Can I see my country’s flaws and still love it? We have our own problems and people here too easily treat war like a football game. War is always somber, should never be treated like a competition for excellence. It is about preserving or changing ways of life–but lives are in the balance. We should enter it prayerfully, careful especially for the lives of civilians everywhere, not to mention those of soldiers.

Life is so precious. How we respond to those who do not respect life is an indication of our core beliefs. We execute our criminals. We revel in entertainment that is a culture of death, and we kill our unborn. Yet we are outraged when someone kills our own. Life is precious and yet we still take theirs (and the lives of others) without a chance. Is the only solution anger?

Would I be more angry if I could see and smell the destruction? If I could palpably touch the human suffering, those poor people running around with pictures of loved ones. How can I not be angry at the perpetrators? Am I in shock? I took a survey on The Washington Post website and my feelings of sorrow are in the minority. 

But I pray for sinners (am I not one?). I pray for the souls of criminals who are executed. Is it any wonder I am married to a man who works for the public defenders? In Adam’s fall, we sinned all. Vengeance is mine. Turn the other cheek. These are the phrases that jump out at me, not an eye for an eye, etc. It seems God has designed me for peace.

And, yet, I wonder if there is something wrong with me? Does that one lost sheep really deserve more of my attention than the 99 who did the right thing? Do I have more sympathy for the prodigal son than for the elder brother?

Or am I always afraid that I am the prodigal, constantly in need of God’s forgiveness? So afraid that I do not measure up that I cannot judge? Is this a blessing or a curse? Well, all I can say is the words from the song: “God made me, God made me. In my Bible book it says that God made me.”

This side of 25 years, words still escape me about that day and the aftermath. May we never forget the lives lost that day–or those that ultimately sacrificed their health from jumping in to help. If I had to choose what the rest of us should do to honor them, it would be to love each other more and stop living like we’re on separate teams instead of people who have the ability to pull together to share a country founded to govern for all.

Resting Easy–Soon

We are so, so close to finishing our outside renovations that began July 20. Although we are enjoying most of the upgrades already, we still need to get a new cover over our patio. The crew removed the old cover in order to paint the supports–and then mostly got tied up in other projects. I just wanted the final signs of chaos gone!

You know how clutter causes anxiety just by existing in our spaces? For those of us with conditions such as ADD, it’s even worse because we just can’t figure out where to put anything. If we’re living in outdated spaces (NOT purpose-built for how people live in 2026), meeting the organizing challenge is even harder. For so long, my subconscious has been telling me I must do something about my outside spaces. Money, time, will, and inertia all got in the way of living a calmer life. It was either do something big–or move. But, hey, I’m even more resistant to moving than I am to renovation!

My ADD-focused (Focused!! There’s a joke I didn’t intend.) therapist used to tell me how much easier it was for people to work outside of the home–if nothing more than to get a person away from all the visual to-dos of their living spaces. For people who didn’t work, she recommended doing any paperwork (yeah, I’m old) or tasks such as paying bills in a coffee shop or library. Before I went back to work, I tried that technique periodically. 

But going into a job site meant someone else cleaned my office once a week. If I left only neat little piles on my desk, that person even dusted it. At my company, we were so spoiled that we even had a professional plant person water and manage plants–plants that looked way better than any I could grow at home.

Like many people, I got thrown into working from home in March 2020. Now it was up to me to tidy my work spaces–and I had to learn to ignore any chaos in my shared living spaces. I’ve been done from working that job for three years now, which means I’ve grown to notice the visual to-dos more. It seems like there is always something I should be doing–and that has included to-dos in the outdoor spaces. 

We’re several years into extensive improvements on this house where my husband first moved over 40 years ago (and where I joined three years later). Though we spent our early years enhancing the inside of the home, we expect any prospective buyer to do a total interior redo as is common these days in our older neighborhood. We’ve instead turned our attention to practical updates, such as solar panels, radon mitigation, an electrical panel upgrade, and heat pump heating/cooling–and the exterior. Last year we paid someone else to refresh the paint on the house and garage–and install new gutters.

That led to this year’s total exterior redo. Trust me, it was long past necessary with the strains of 80+ years on the ground, as well as who knows how many years on features such as trees, steps, sidewalks,  patio, and fencing. 

After the majority of the project was completed, we enjoyed a week of calm and order before the necessary disruption caused by the patio cover work began. Though we had brought back the grill, table and chairs, and anything else that goes on the patio, we had to move them out again to less convenient locations. So much for calm and order.  

Once the patio cover came off, the project stalled. Repainting the metal frame took another 10 days. Cover installation is scheduled for Sep. 15–which will be just under four weeks without a patio cover on our house–but who is counting? We have learned why the previous owners added a cover–after sunrise, the kitchen is so bright it looks like someone turned on a klieg light–the kind formerly used for making movies. These days I eat my breakfasts in the dining room! Can’t wait for this project to be completed–though I have to.

There’s no way we were holding off on restoring (temporary) order until completion, especially since we planned to celebrate Labor Day weekend on our new patio. Once the shade covered the patio, we ate outside all three days. 

Yes, we’re going to have to move everything off the patio one more time. But after we move it all back, we can leave it–because that’s where it belongs. No more nagging thoughts that we need to be doing something. After almost two months of chaos, we can just sit back and celebrate that we finally eliminated a whole lot of to-dos that stood in the way of a calmer way of living.

Here’s to getting through a few more days until we finally rest easy.

Still–But Not

Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, Oregon

When I started practicing yoga over 20 years ago, I did not understand the mindfulness part of it. I was used to exercising and moving my body, but my mind was more often in full “monkey mind” mode than in the moment–unless a pose really challenged me. In fact, I think I had been drawn to exercise of any kind because of the need to calm that monkey mind. But the final pose in yoga–savasana or corpse pose–isn’t exercise. It’s all about being still. 

Ooh–I didn’t like that part at first. Seemed like a waste of time–until it didn’t. I got to a point where I almost threw myself on the floor to get to savasana.

As a very visual person, my savasanas are full of images–and movement. Of course, they are full of movement–even though I have learned to still my body.

During my time on the mat, I so often dance. Dancing like I can, dancing like I used to be able to dance, or dancing like I never could. And despite growing up and living in landlocked spaces, I dance on beaches, by the ocean.

Today I started dancing again and moved to grab the hand of 12-year-old me, reassuring her that we were alone and she could dance however she wanted. This girl only got to visit the Oregon beach one weekend in her life, but in a time period when she’d rather sleep, she knew enough to get up early and walk along the shore in the mists and early morning light. 

This morning I whispered to her, “You’ll always have the Oregon beach.” 

And I let her know that she’d get through the soon-to-arrive dark days of early adolescence and its accompanying drama–and use her body to run, dance, and jump her way into more than she had been. She’d learn that though those activities might elevate her social status, she would eventually do them only for herself, no longer caring to impress people who did not want to know the whole of who she was. But those movements would help her to come into who she was meant to be.

I cannot tell you the age I am when I dance on the beach in the stillness of my body. I am older than the girl who visited the beach, but I am a variety of ages I have been–and like myself as well as not like myself. Though my mind is not still as I rest, the dancing I envision feeds and calms my soul. 

Even if the day comes that I cannot complete yoga poses, I will always have the Oregon beach–and the ability to dance on those sands when I close my eyes.

Return on Investment–in Human Potential

Existing Rosebush Growing in August Thanks to Newly Installed Drip System

Imagine turning down an investment that reliably provides a 13% return. That’s the ROI (return on investment) found by a study on “comprehensive, high-quality, birth-to-five early education” by Nobel laureate James J. Heckman and his team. Yet federal budgetary priorities for the current administration have shifted away from social programs, such as early education, that help people in poverty. At the same time, the wealthiest earners and corporations are paying lower taxes. I used to think such policies were simply shortsighted, but after understanding many of the effects of policy changes in the President’s current and previous administration, I believe there is an intentional plan to favor those at the top of our society over the rest of us. 

So here we are almost a decade into an experiment of governing differently. Are we great yet? This solidly middle class person felt disenfranchised from the beginning as programs I held dear and that I felt were necessary for caring for others began being dismantled. For example, as a parent who had been involved in educational accountability and who contacted my senator to no avail about the direction of the Department of Education, I saw a chosen leader who knew nothing about public school programs begin to destroy them in favor of providing funds to parents to use in private education. That’s when it hit me that the goals had changed. What was said sounded like caring for all kids, but the actions showed the opposite. I started to wonder whether the real agenda was to keep smart kids from other classes of people out of competition for college and important roles in society. Reduction in early childhood access is just one of the beginning steps on that journey.

The America I was born into told me that people who worked hard found opportunities. I was privileged to be born into a family that could spend time with me–and provide me with activities such as music lessons, dance classes, sports teams, and 4-H club. And books–so many books. My parents were first generation college graduates–thanks to working their way through school as well as my dad having access to the GI Bill for additional studies after he returned home from Korea. Though we were solidly part of the burgeoning middle class, we needed to make choices–such as setting aside monthly amounts toward buying instruments or my mom taking a second job to help with college costs.

While the America of my birth didn’t offer equal opportunities for everyone, it was in the process of expanding who got to participate and how to do so. According to History.com, “[t]he Great Society was an ambitious series of policy initiatives, legislation and programs spearheaded by President Lyndon B. Johnson with the main goals of ending poverty, reducing crime, abolishing inequality and improving the environment.” Early childhood education and learning was a pillar of the Great Society.

By the time I graduated from college, America was already contracting in ways that would shrink the middle class and reduce opportunities for hard workers–from the bottom or the middle–looking to get ahead. Many of today’s young people–regardless of education level or race or ethnic background–feel as if owning a home, starting a family, or getting a college education are life activities people like them cannot access in today’s economy. Those who can do so often thanks to financial help from older relatives. 

Again, if this were solely about money, surely someone would realize that if fewer people participate in the economy, eventually the economy will slow down.  

I’m more and more feeling like the income inequality is the point. The qualification for who gets to lead is being born to the right people in the right class–which feels like the very opposite of what our country was supposed to be, even if we never really achieved our lofty goals in that area. Many policies especially seem targeted to keep people of color–regardless of income–out of power centers. How many times has our leader touted “good genes”? 

I don’t feel these types of leaders care what studies say about lifting people out of poverty. Despite their love of money, they love the ability to keep all the goodies to themselves even more. No more social climbers with their crazy ideas of spreading opportunities to all. 

Speaking of–the rich, famous, successful, and powerful Dolly Parton died yesterday (Aug. 25, 2026). Despite what many currently at the top of power are saying, I think they would prefer someone like her, who grew up poor, not go on to build her foundation–Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library–that helps families create “richer home literacy environments.” According to the library’s website, it gifted its 200 millionth book in 2023. Thanks to Dolly, a whole lot of kids have had access to a whole lot of books–and learning.

The current leaders don’t seem to want public or private money to bring about returns on investments that lift people out of poverty. How sad to fear scarcity if others also have access and power instead of imagining the abundance we could all create and share if more people participated in economic security. That’s the kind of ROI many of us will keep working toward even as those in charge attempt to crash human potential.

Imagine with me.

Out of Hand

You’ve got to hand it to ICE–they’re practically medieval in their desire to torture those in their custody. Electric shock gloves would have been a perfect tool for any castle dungeon if the technology had been available then–and will be for employees of ICE in 2026, if approved for purchase to be paid for by us, the US taxpayers. 

Turns out these gloves are already in use by some police departments and correctional institutions. Isn’t that special? Especially since using the gloves leaves no evidence.

There are all sorts of caveats about how to use these gloves properly so as to not cause permanent pain or some sort of medical emergency. (What about permanent emotional trauma? Oh, never mind that.) For example, there are suggested limits for how long the shock should be applied–I am sure a person applying them on a non-compliant person will count to the maximum suggested time limit and make sure to stop applying the shock at that point. 

(Side question: If there are known risks, why aren’t the gloves designed to shut down after the maximum suggested time–especially knowing that the gloves will be used in times of chaos and intense interaction? Why ask the user–who may not be motivated to do the right thing–to monitor how long they can be used?)

Note that instructions say the gloves are not to be used on children, the elderly, pregnant women, and the disabled–as if a person can always tell who meets those requirements in the heat of the moment. In fact, many people–even those without a diagnosis–are easily overwhelmed by sensory touch. Add electrical shock to that touch and who knows how the bodies of those people may respond.

And if the gloves shouldn’t be used on children, why did a police department (Omaha Police Department) provide them to school resource officers in Omaha Public Schools? Without the direct knowledge of the local school board or administration. After an outcry from parents and the community, the school superintendent has asked the city and police to stop using the gloves. 

My daughter’s friend recently saw his neighbor being picked up by ICE. That friend is traumatized from watching the cruel techniques that were applied during the encounter–while he could not stop what was happening to his neighbor. If the officers had the shock gloves to use, maybe the gloves would have hidden their actions, but the terror on the face of the person being detained still would have been noticed.

Most people don’t enjoy the suffering of others. I think we need to question those who do and who do it in our names while using our funding. Just say “no” to adding electric shock gloves to the toolbox ICE uses for dehumanizing those taken into custody.  

Show ‘Em Mercy

As I finished my master’s in business, I visited the campus career center for assessments and guidance. I remember that the Strong Interest Inventory asked how I felt about playing board games. But surely I am misremembering that one of the answer choices was something snarky like “Or don’t we like playing games?”. However untrue my memory of the specific answer might be, I really don’t like playing most games. 

Nonetheless, my family has a tradition of playing games like UNO and Pit. Since there’s quite a bit of luck involved, I don’t take too personally the idea that any losses rely solely on my abilities.

That is even truer of the even more ridiculous UNO game called UNO Show ‘Em No Mercy. Thanks to the possibility of cumulatively adding “Draw ‘4/8/10’” cards, it’s possible to get so many (25 or more) that a player is thrown out of the game with a “mercy” rule (ironic given the title).

When various members of our family (my brother, a 14-year-old great-nephew, a 9-year-old great-nephew, my cousin, her adult daughter, my husband, and I) gathered together to play that ridiculous game, it went about how you’d expect–one of us got thrown out immediately and everyone else kept trading hands of 20-plus cards to hands of three cards and back again. No one else got thrown out and no one ever won. We finally had to call the game for time.

Despite my warning not to expect a fair game, our nine-year-old great-nephew had a hard time accepting how the play went. I explained to him how it was a lot like life: sometimes you are winning and sometimes you are losing–badly. And often through no fault of your own. (But let’s face it–maybe we also  shouldn’t have sat him next to his 14-year-old cousin who played strategically to irritate his little cousin. Unfortunately, there are also “players” like that in real life who are out to get us.) My brother seemed as unimpressed as his grandson.

Then it hit me–the two of them know way too much about the capriciousness of life. And my great-nephew learned that way too early (before he turned four) when his dad (my nephew) died around six years ago. That was my brother’s son. And then Life exponentially ramped up the level of unfairness when my brother’s wife died six months later. Dad/son and then Grandma/wife gone just like someone had drawn a card that said to switch hands with someone else.

So maybe this version of UNO is never going to be a favorite game for either of them. But I pray/hope that they both get way more chances in this life to be holding good hands–even though nothing can make up for those really bad hands dealt to them. 

Maybe games are just too big of a metaphor for some of us to handle.

Coming Soon: Shaking the Dust Off Our Sandals

Once upon a time, a man who worked as a contractor built his own family’s home. I didn’t know him, but heard stories from our very reliable neighbor (or “neighbor lady,” as she would have been known in Nebraska). When my husband initially bought this house with his brother and a friend, she had been living next door for over 20 years. Though the county’s records state our house was built in 1947, our neighbor told us the only family who lived here before provided a different back story. The woman of the house claimed they built the house during the war, but could only acquire enough materials to make a basement house. Then, after the war, they added on the top floor.

That back story makes sense to us. The space between the floors is so solid that we had to install two furnaces (thanks heat pump mini-splits for making it so we could continue to stay warm without having to replace our two aging furnaces). The garden-level basement would have been lighter than most basements during those war years when the family all lived mostly below ground.

Whether the house is over 80 years old, or slightly under, the outside spaces–hardscape and landscaping–have grown tired. The soil was played out with the ground collecting water where it shouldn’t. Beetles had claimed our front yard spruce (Ips beetles) and the turf (Japanese beetle grubs). The concrete stairs were crumbling and the back patio sinking. It was many years past time to update those outside spaces. 

I use past tense because we are in the middle of an extreme makeover. As I write, I hear sounds from an earth mover and some sort of saw. Thank goodness the jackhammer noises are over! By now, even the dogs have grown used to hearing muffled voices all day long. 

This is not the post where I describe all the new features because I’m going to have so much more to say when the crew walks away for the last time. But so far they have removed the back patio as well as all the sidewalks and steps. Those earth movers have scraped the dirt until no vegetation remains and have regraded the property so water drains properly. 

I confess that I–just like my dogs–do not do well when my routines are disrupted. When we  allow the dogs out after the work day, they stir up so much dust it’s hard not to choke. Daily we have to dodge obstacles to get out of our yard. Today, no stairs out the front. The next day, avoid the drying concrete out the back. Tread carefully on the access to the public sidewalk. And water, water, water those poor plants in pots we keep moving to avoid the dust, heat, and construction activities. (Thank goodness the crew waters them, too.)

Every day I tell myself the current upheaval will be worth it–which it will. What has been done so far is such an upgrade that people we’ve never seen before stop to talk to us as they walk the sidewalk in front–maybe just to see what is going on. Our house is a visible advertisement for the landscaping company–one that makes their sign in our yard well read.

My husband rues that we are paying slightly more for the upgrades than the house cost in 1985. True that, but the privilege of becoming adults at the time we did helps make such an investment possible. Well, that and holding on to that same house while property values increased. It is really past time to improve our property. Finally–after years skimping while raising kids, time spent focusing on aging parents, and working through our own health challenges. 

For now our house and sandals are full of dust. But soon we will shake the dust off our sandals  and walk into a whole new way of living outside this house that has been home to all the ups and downs of a life well-lived together. 

What the World Wants Today

Today at the end of yoga, the instructor led the class in chanting three oms while we held our arms in “t” formations. My fingers brushed the fingers of my friend sitting and chanting to the right. While I try to pay attention to how long her arms and legs are and reposition so I don’t encroach on her space, today that accidental touch inspired a vision of paper doll chains. Not just paper doll chains, but human chains made from people all around the world reaching out to one another. In that instant I got the message. 

Freedom from so much of the pain happening in today’s world will come only if we turn to one another–and work together to make the changes most of us want. We want governments that work for general citizens, not just for the powerful. We want leaders who abhor cruelty and create policies that lift people up. 

I remember a time when even corporations knew they needed to pander to the consumers by promoting peace and an expanded society. Do I believe Coca-Cola wanted “to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony”? No–but I think the company figured out that if it promoted the type of inclusive community sought by so many groups in our society at the time, they were going to sell more drinks. If it took saying “it” was the real thing and what the world wanted then to do so, then so be it. 

After the last ten years, I don’t think it’s just people who can remember that song (from 1971) who want a more peaceful world. There really are so many of us who think our countries have stopped caring about what makes life worth living for the many and have turned back to working for the benefit of the few.

But the math is in our favor. Join hands and demonstrate to those in charge that the real things we want now are not what they are promoting. In fact, what we want can be expressed as the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness declared by a certain group of men just over 250 years ago–a declaration that introduced a new way of governing to a world desperate to break free from living in such a way that what most people wanted didn’t matter.

The bonds we choose together are stronger than the bonds forced upon us. Those bonds are the real thing.

The Land Is Our Land

Celebrating the USA’s 250th birthday with an all-states state fair is on target. However, the execution has fallen short of recreating the experience of attending a state fair. Maybe not enough Midwesterners were involved with planning it–but I think the people in charge also didn’t understand that a state fair is supposed to bring all kinds of people together. Those whose livestock and home-baked goods are being judged as well as people who love to eat junk food or ride the rides that make you regret all that food. 

But for several of us, our biggest experiences with county and state fairs come from being involved in the youth program called 4H. The skills we built all year in 4H grew into projects (including the living project of raising some form of animal for many kids) we took to the local fair to compete for ribbons: purple, blue, red, white, or–God forbid–green (did not meet specifications of the guidelines). The very best offerings from the older kids went on for judging at the State Fair.

While in 4H I learned from a variety of subject areas and activities, such as sewing, modeling my sewn clothing, presenting demonstrations, baking, painting, photography, and decorating, my club’s main focus was always performing at the annual song contest. When my mom began leading our group’s singing, we weren’t old enough to qualify to compete at the State Fair. Once we were, we worked toward moving on to perform at the State Fair. Some years we only sang at the off-site judging stations and other years we also went on to perform on stage at the fair itself.

The competitions required us to perform one patriotic song, in addition to allowing a more general song. In order to keep our musical set fresh each year, we cycled through a variety of patriotic songs. Because the competition limited our singing time, we didn’t sing full versions of those songs. However, since we needed to raise funds to travel to the fair, when we hired ourselves out to sing for local groups, we gave the audiences unabridged versions. Our renditions often brought tears to the eyes of those listening, especially those from the generations that had participated in and/or lived through World War II. We understood patriotism from their faces in a way we and our 1970s peers had not been forced to experience.

Today, as our country celebrates its 250th birthday, I realize my generation and those that followed took so much for granted. I long for the type of collective allegiance to our country I experienced growing up and while attending those county and state fairs. One of my greatest heartbreaks followed my mistaken belief that those fellow fair-goers from long ago would reject the divisiveness brought by a city slicker who did not understand the importance of working with our hands to create the fruits of our lands, towns, and homes. But they did not–and now the people and lands I knew no longer feel like home to me.

When our group sang the words of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” we did so with a shallow understanding of that song. To us it sounded nothing like the protest music of the 60s. But we were wrong–protest music of the 60s followed from Guthrie’s lifelong work. (Check out the recording and the lyrics on the Guthrie site–I challenge you to try to listen without tears in your eyes.)

Of all the patriotic songs I sang with my 4H group, this song calls to me most in this moment. I want to believe in the words in the way I casually believed in them so many years ago while standing on that stage at the State Fair. I DO believe them–and each day it seems more and more of us do, too. I am still longing to find my home again with the people and lands I once knew.

It’s time to return our country to the values represented at county and state fairs all over this great country.

Here’s to these lyrics from Guthrie demonstrating where we are moving now: 

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

May the fog be lifting. Chant it loud: This land is our land. Happy 250th, America! Here’s to happier days ahead–and soon.

Supremely Unhappy Birthday to Me–and to the USA

Back when I was a low-information voter, I didn’t consider June a very political month other than when voting in municipal elections. My state now holds primaries in June, but most of the biggest political news comes from the end of the year for the Supreme Court. Many late-June decisions finalized over the last 15 or so years have taken the shine off of my birthday month–or my birthday itself.

Since the Court opened up a role for big money in our elections, decisions that upset me and many others have accelerated. Corporations have rights, just like people. But . . . case after case reduces the rights of those people. Our one vote/one person politics can’t keep up with those who can sweeten the pots for politicians or judges. 

And there seems to be a lot of money out there going to undo many rights decided during my lifetime–which is over 60 freakin’ years. The society I grew into is being dismantled. Women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, immigrants, and just-plain citizens have fewer rights than at any time that I have known. 

At the same time, corporations are receiving decisions that say they shouldn’t have to put up with rules that limit their ability to make money just because their products cause cancer and foul our air, water, and soil. People of privilege are being told that, yes, it’s discriminatory to them if people who have been historically held back are given redress for past societal wrongs. In fact, the Court keeps smacking down anyone who thinks any unequal treatment should be addressed–unless it seems the privileged feel badly treated.

Our Supreme Court keeps working to legalize mistreatment of people–and to return to the type of 18th and 19th century decisions that favored the Animal Farm philosophy of “everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.” 

I am tired of the ugly effects of these decisions. Women dying from pregnancy emergencies. Black and brown voters losing representation. Exposing people to cancerous chemicals without protection. Sending refugees back to their countries of origin–or other countries–regardless of the danger there. Turning away people seeking asylum. Elevating the president’s ability to do almost whatever the current president pleases regardless of precedent or culpability–even though I doubt such leverage would be applied to a leader of the other party.

I’m also tired of the inconsistent application of the Constitution. One day originalism is the reason behind a decision. Another day an explanation of what the law means in today’s world rules the day. I always thought law was supposed to be rational and balanced, but even laypeople can see that the line of logic doesn’t hold from one decision to the next.

Here’s to another year of a not-so-happy birthday to me and the people who thought the Supreme Court had the backs of all the citizens–but have found out instead that it’s another “pay-to-play” power space that has turned its own back on the democratic role our founders intended.

What a “supreme” way to honor the 250th year of the birth of this nation–not.